Blame the Shirt
by Shelbecat
Summary: Seth struggles to choose the perfect shirt for his date with Ryan.


**Pairing**: Ryan/Seth 

**Blame the Shirt**

He'd narrowed it down to three choices.  Now all he had left to do was make a decision.

And it wasn't one to be taken lightly.  Not at all.  The fate of his entire relationship rested upon this moment.

The white, the brown, or the orange.

His shirt.

For his date.

With Ryan.

Seth felt himself urge again at the thought.

"The shirt…the shirt, the shirt, the shirt."  He rubbed his hand through his hair, cursing when he realized he'd just destroyed the careful work of twenty minutes in the bathroom.  He'd have to fix it later; right now, he had to put something on his body.

He reached for the white.

_Have you hugged my shirt today?_

It was cute, sort of coy, very…suggestive.

He balled it up and threw it towards his closet.  He couldn't wear a shirt that said he wanted Ryan to hug him; he might as well hang a _Fuck me stupid _sign around his neck.

Which wasn't actually a bad idea, but he'd save that for another occasion.  Tonight was their first official date after weeks of stolen moments and secret kisses.  For tonight he would set his expectations just on getting another good night kiss, and maybe even a good night rubbing of their bodies moment.  He'd never experienced anything like it with Summer and truly believed Ryan alone had invented the act.

Tonight, he would just wear a _kiss me, touch me, feel me all over _shirt.  He would wear the brown shirt.

_A, D, G  
Now start a band_

Now this was a safe shirt.  It was sarcastic, almost cocky.  It said that he knew more about the realities of music than most people; well, if you left out the design team behind Urban Outfitters.  But it was a better shirt.  Better than the white at least.

He held it up to his chest and turned towards the mirror.  Music, good subject.  Something he felt comfortable with.  If Ryan needed a topic to break the ice, he could get inspiration from Seth's shirt.  And Seth would obviously be comfortable with the topic, since he was the one wearing said shirt.

Except Ryan wouldn't need a topic to break the ice.  Ryan would let the ice freeze all the way from here to hell before he'd take a suggestion from Seth's shirt to break it.  And besides, what did this shirt say about him?  That he loved music more than he loved Ryan?  That he would rather throw his knowledge in the face of strangers than concentrate on their date?

He crumpled the shirt and threw it behind him.  Stupid sarcastic shirt.  Why couldn't he just wear a nice plain white shirt with no witty sayings?  A nice plain wife-beater like Ryan wore with a black button up on top.

Because it made him look like he was trying to be cool.  And only people who were 12 dressed like they were trying to be cool.  The last thing he wanted Ryan to think was that he was 12.

He stared at his naked chest in the mirror.  Yuck.  He looked sickly.  All skin and bones sticking out everywhere.  He had to start toning, building some muscles to match the ones that rippled beneath Ryan's skin when he raised himself up over Seth's waiting body.

No!  He wasn't going to think of Ryan's naked anything tonight, well, until later, but right now, he had to find a shirt.  He looked back at the bed.  The orange shirt.

_Mike's Bait  
Doesn't Give Fish A Fighting Chance_

He liked the orange shirt.  The orange shirt was fun, it was light-hearted; the orange shirt said _I'm ready for anything you want to do, as long as it involves your tongue in my mouth_.

Damn it, the orange was a great shirt.

Seth pulled it on and turned towards the mirror.  He winked slyly at his reflection, orange was a great color, he should wear orange all over it was that great.

No.  Shit.  _Orange__ all over_?  Ryan hated _orange all over_, or at least he should.  _Orange__ all over_ was the color of jumpsuits, Seth remembered the cringe on Ryan's face at Thanksgiving when Marissa prattled on and on about the prison in Chino.  "You should have seen it.  Everyone was in orange, it was so depressing!"

He pulled the shirt off over his head.  He did not want his date to be depressing.  No, definitely not orange.

He dropped the shirt to the floor and looked down at the empty bed.  He'd started out with 25 potentials, narrowed it down to 10 semi-finalists, and then selected three to go to the championship round.  You would think that out of 25, one would emerge victorious.  No.  Instead he was still naked from the waist up, ribs threatening to poke someone's eye out, and he had absolutely nothing to wear.

Except maybe the yellow.  Seth frowned as he kicked aside some of the earlier cast-offs and searched his floor for the yellow shirt.  It didn't have any witty quotes on it that could be easily misinterpreted.  It didn't say he thought he knew more about a subject than his date.  And it definitely didn't remind anyone of a prison outfit.

At least, he didn't think they wore yellow in prison.  Orange was bad, but dude, yellow…that was just gay.

Seth smirked at his own misuse of the term and _gaily_ pulled the shirt on over his head.  The miniature smiley face on his left breast was the only marking.  He nodded.  A good shirt.

Good, if a bit wrinkly, but that meant he didn't care too much about his appearance, and he didn't want Ryan to think he'd spent the last 20 minutes agonizing over which shirt to wear.  Wrinkled was good.  Wrinkled said he was cool.

Shit, wrinkled said he didn't care about his appearance.  Wrinkled said he thought Ryan wouldn't notice if he wore a freshly pressed shirt.  Wrinkled was stupid, it was lazy, it was…it was cold-hearted, that's what wrinkled was.  Seth wasn't about to have Ryan think he was cold-hearted.

He ripped the yellow shirt off and whirled around in a panic.  He had to choose, he had 25 to choose from, one of them had to be the right one!

He eyed the hem of the white shirt peaking out of his closet and snatched it off the floor.  So the white shirt implied _Fuck me stupid_.  Getting fucked stupid wasn't exactly a bad way for the evening to end.  He smiled as he pulled it over his head and smoothed it across his chest.

Yep.  The white one.  The _fuck me stupid_ white shirt.  It was perfect.

Grabbing his wallet from his desk, he stuffed it in his back pocket and bounded out the door.  It was 6:55 pm, their date officially started at 7.  Seth smiled, Ryan was going to be impressed.

Hopping off the last stair onto the marble flooring in the foyer, he looked around to see that Ryan was nowhere in sight.  Good, not only was he early, he was first.  Always good to be first on important dates.

He was positively beaming when he turned around to enter the kitchen.  Then he saw Ryan standing by the sink and nearly threw up on the spot.

Ryan was not only ready for their date, he was dressed and obviously hadn't had nearly as much drama as Seth did in choosing his clothes.  Ryan was wearing crisp black dress pants, falling to the tops of polished black loafers.  He'd topped the pants with a starched white long-sleeved shirt, the top two buttons opened to reveal his bronzed skin.

Seth's tongue felt like a lead weight and his mouth opened and shut dumbly like a contented fish.  He was anything but contented.  And now he had the memory of his first fish sex experience back in his brain after six months of careful repression.

Ryan nodded his head in Seth's direction and then his eyes drifted down across Seth's body.

Seth tensed, then casually tried to lean against the door frame.  His hand slipped off the wood and his hip crashed into the counter with a sharp crack.

"Dude, hey," he forced out as he righted himself against the wall and crossed his arms across his chest.  "What's up?"  He let his arms fall down by his side then folded them on his chest again quickly.

An awkward silence yawned between them and Seth waited for Ryan to say something, anything.

"Uh…aren't we going out?"

"What?"  Seth felt his cheeks flush as he glanced down at his watch.  "Oh yeah, right.  That was now wasn't it?  Yeah, I just gotta get ready."

"You aren't ready?"

"What?"  His voice came out as a high-pitched squeak and he took in a shaky breath.  "No, no…not ready yet.  Dude, I'm like wearing jeans!"  Seth felt his cheeks flush as he eyed Ryan carefully and waited for him to smile.

Ryan didn't.

"You look fine.  If you don't want to go…"

"No, no, I want to go.  I want nothing more than _to go_.  It's just that I have to get ready first.  To the untrained eye I may appear ready, but if you take a closer look, you'll see that this is the shirt I wore yesterday.  There is no way ready would involve me wearing a shirt I wore yesterday.  Or even one that I wore last week, because that would be cruel and uncaring of fashion and all things holy according to some people…"

Don't say it.  Don't say it!  His brain warned him to stop but he'd learned long ago that his mouth cared little what his brain wanted.

"According to Summer."

Seth shut his eyes.  He wished he were still six years old and believed that if you couldn't see the other person they couldn't see you too.

Ryan made a funny sound in his throat, almost like laughing, only it couldn't be, because Ryan had to be pissed.  And Ryan didn't laugh when he was pissed.

Seth opened one eye, dared a look to see that Ryan wasn't outwardly angry, then opened both eyes and stared.

Ryan looked down into his coffee and shrugged.  "Well I guess if Summer thinks you aren't ready."

"Right…Summer thinks I'm not ready.  And she's vicious Ryan, you know she's vicious.  So I should really just go upstairs and get ready.  I mean, here you are, all ready and stuff, and it would just be wrong if I wasn't ready.  So yeah…I'll just go get ready."

Seth rushed back up the stairs, cursing under his breath the whole way.  Fuck.  Summer.  He had to mention Summer.  He just had to bring up the girl he'd dated right up until the moment Ryan showed one iota of interest in him.  She'd dumped him faster than a hot potato right out of the oven, then sat him down for an entire afternoon of _guy lovin' advice_ which he cringed and hummed his way uncomfortably through.

Summer was not the girl he wanted to bring up on the night of his first big date with Ryan.  Summer was not the person he should be thinking of while he was getting ready for this most important moment.  Summer was not the girl he should be calling right now to ask advice about what to wear.

But he still was.

"Pick up…pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up, pick up."  Seth paced his bedroom with the phone tucked under one shoulder.  He pulled the vile white shirt halfway up his body until it got tangled around his head, his elbow, and the phone and he had to stop.

Everything fell to the floor, including him in a tangle of limbs and _fuck me _white material.  Summer's answering machine had picked up by the time he retrieved the phone and he sighed in defeat that she wasn't going to save him.  It was now 7:01 PM and not only was he officially late for the single most important day of his life, he was still half-naked and his prospects of putting clothes on anytime soon were looking dim.

Maybe he should just go down and tell Ryan to go on without him.  He was confident a better time would be had by all.

"So you wanna just wear that?"

He whipped his head around, clutching the white shirt to his chest to hide his scary, eye-poking ribs.  Ryan was leaning against the door frame, still so casual and collected even in dress pants and a shirt that Seth wanted to see tangled in a heap on the floor.

"No…no…"  Seth stared at the pile of clothes surrounding him.  The yellow and orange were mocking him from their discarded locations.  The brown was half-hidden beneath a pair of jeans he'd ripped off his legs in an earlier dramatic moment.  And there was a green shirt he'd thrown away simply for the balls of its statement during the first round of cuts.

He reached for the green again now.

"I was just trying to pick…you know, the shirt I had on was dirty, and most of these are all out of shape.  I think Rosa's been adding too much softener to the wash, have you smelled your laundry lately.  I'm sure she's mixing _Spring Fresh_ with _Summer Breeze_."

God damn it!  He'd said her name again!

He couldn't look up, instead just stared at the floor and Ryan's feet crossing it to stop in front of him.

Ryan lowered himself to the carpet.  One leg curled in to press against Seth's knees.  The other stretched out beside him.  He felt trapped.  Like he couldn't move.  It was the best feeling he'd had all day.

"Like I said before.  What you're wearing is fine."

"What I'm wearing?  You mean the green one?"  Seth held the green shirt up to his chest.

_Don't blame me, blame the shirt._

Ryan shook his head.  His hand stretched out to snag the top of the shirt.  He tugged gently as it fell down across Seth's chest and landed once again on the floor.

"I mean what you're wearing _now_."

Seth swallowed hard.  Tonight was supposed to be dinner at some place far away from the prying eyes of Newport and a movie in a very crowded, very dark theatre.  They were supposed to be alone, together, and not worry one bit about anyone recognizing them.  Seth swallowed again as he realized that his parents were out for the whole night and absolutely no one would recognize them if they stayed right here on his bedroom floor.

"I think…I think I'm too skinny."

Seth blurted out the statement then promptly blushed as a smile lit Ryan's face.

"I think some people would kill for your figure.  Summer perhaps?"

"Oh shit, oh dude, I'm so sorry.  I didn't mean to mention her, I wasn't thinking about her or anything, honest, I was just…"

"It's fine.  Really.  She's the first person I'd ask for fashion advice too."

"Oh…right.  Not that you'd like, even need fashion advice though.  I mean of course."

Now it was Ryan's turn to look embarrassed as he bowed his head.

"No way!  Dude!  Summer dressed you?"

Ryan let his eyes drift back up as far as Seth's collar bone.  "Well she just offered some suggestions.  You know, in case I wore that, what did she call it…"  Ryan tilted his head as he tried to remember.  "Oh yeah.  '_The jacket that time forgot._'  She said it was like '_coolness on smack_'… or was it blow.  I can't remember."

"Dude…"  Seth shook his head in disbelief.  "Summer totally dressed you."

"So?  You should have let her dress you!"

The smile on Seth's face matched Ryan's and for a moment he forgot that he was sitting half-naked on his bedroom floor in front of the guy he was still supposed to be impressing.  Then Ryan's hand touched his bare back and he convulsed.

"Okay…"  He scrambled to retrieve the green shirt from the pile.  "Time to put something on.  Let's hope Summer would approve."

"Seth…Seth!"  Ryan's voice broke into his frantic shuffling but he desperately tried to ignore it.  The longer Ryan had to see his underdeveloped body, the more he'd be turned off if they were ever able to salvage this evening into an actual date.

"Seth stop."  His voice was firmer now, as was his left hand firmly clamped on Seth's shoulder, and his right reaching around to cup his face.  "I already told you it was fine."

Seth met his eyes and saw only acceptance.  No repulsion from the hazardous ribs, no sickness from the pale-white skin.  Just openness, and honesty, and an invitation to have their date right there on the floor of his bedroom.

He leaned into to Ryan's body and opened their first date up with a kiss.

In the end, he did put on a shirt; the green shirt.  But it was only when he ran downstairs to pay for the Italian take-out that they then ate on his floor.  He'd loved the shirt from the moment he saw it in the store.  He'd thought it was a blessing in disguise when he'd found it in the earlier scramble not to be naked.  And he swore it was the best investment he'd ever made when Ryan ripped it off his body that night.

The green shirt was perfect.

_Fin._


End file.
